Book discussion
These tend to be short-ish reviews of books I've read recently. I tend to focus on character development more than the plot of the story, so the interestingness of the story itself is not likely to be ranked too highly in my review.
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When Reading Drags
I may have caved to an Online Reading Syndrome. I’m finding it increasingly hard to read some books, while I have no trouble reading various articles, blagoposts, stories, and graphical matter on the internet. Now, in my defense, I’m reading non-fiction, and that’s never been my strong suit, no matter how much the concept of the subject matter appeals. But still. I find myself feeling the flaws of books more acutely than I would in an online piece. For instance, Amartya Sen’s Identity and Violence. Excellent concept for a book:
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One on One Meetings: How We Do at Big Corp
One-on-ones. Damn, how do they work? (I swear, that video has provided me with endless amusement.) Go read or re-read the earlier post. Shoo. Several things make one-on-ones rather different here at Big Corp than they were at Skookum: I’m a contractor The “long-term view” is ultimately a question of “How long do we need you?” and “Will I stay that long?” It’s all very amicable and such, but I don’t get things like: company-paid conferences, to attend internal bigwig visits, paid lunches, to meet my boss’s boss, or much internal mobility beyond what I carve out for myself. (Big Corp is very paranoid about contractors thinking they’re employees.) Instead,…
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Bogleheads’ Retirement Planning: Self-Employment Account Options
A 401(k) for MacGregor? Muy awesome. I had no idea that there were traditional or Roth 401(k) options for the self-employed. I figured that Greg was due to be stuck with only IRAs, as well as a tangle of alphabet soup even I didn’t want to swim in: SEP-IRAs, SIMPLE IRAs, Keoghs, spousal IRAs. This totally changes our game plan, even though we won’t hop to a 401(k) immediately.
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Bogleheads’ Retirement Planning: Tax Games
Why didn’t I ever look at 401(k) contributions as a tax game? Probably because I didn’t really understand how taxes worked.
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Bogleheads’ Retirement Planning: Investment Policy Statement
This is the second of my Bogleheads’ Retirement Planning series. “Investment Policy Statement” a hoity-toity term for “make a contract with yourself on how you’ll invest”. What’s your risk tolerance? What allocation of investments do you want to maintain? How often will you rebalance? What’s your goal? How often will you reassess your goal? I’ve had these things in my head, shuffling them around as I researched and toyed with percentages and numbers. What they weren’t was written down.